Let us make this "Common Knowledge" - Part 2

In an earlier blog titled “Can we call it Common Sense?” (now called "Let us make this Common Knowledge") I commented on how the “flavor of the month” pops up at times within a company or an industry claiming to be the “cure all” for your pain.  My argument being all of the flavors share the same values if they are worth the grain of salt they claim to be, and that the only difference is the degree in which they emphasis a particular view on quality.  Okay, perhaps what I wrote was not in that exact thought, however I am trying to clarify here.

Systems Thinking, Lean, Six Sigma, BPM, TQM, TPS, and more I consider quality models that have been successful for the industries that developed them.  All of the models, like Six Sigma, were adopted by other industries.  For any of these to succeed it takes knowledge of the customer, support of management, and execution from the people who add the value.

My contention is choose one, or better yet choose them all.  If your industry is so focused one may do.  If you are in a dynamic industry, your customer changes, competition is driving change, then perhaps more than one is needed.  After all, is it not common knowledge to satisfy the customer, to meet and/or exceed the customer’s needs and wants?

I have created a basic 4-circle Venn diagram to illustrate the relationship between TQM, TPS, Lean, and Six Sigma.  You can add more, leave the four circles and change the title, it doesn’t matter right now.  The important thing to note is that IF all of these are customer centric, they will have to overlap at some point at the VOC (voice of the customer).

Now, if you take a given industry, say healthcare, you will find some hospitals may follow Six Sigma while others TPS.  This does not mean they do not stride into TQM or Lean because they do.  They just do not know it.

Call it what you want.  I now believe this should be "common knowledge".  You choose from the tool box what you need to solve Your problem.  It does not matter what flavor it came from.  Just know how to apply it and that you are applying it for customer satisfaction.


8/12/2011 Update
Reading through some LinkedIn forums I came across a post "Six Sigma in 3 words is?" by Lee Jones.  It was Very nice to see the responses were coinciding with my "Common Knowledge" approach, in that everyone was covering all of the possibilities that overlapped or maybe even engulfed areas like TQM, TPS, Lean, and more.


(Common Knowledge - Part 1)    (Common Knowledge - Part 3)